A plan to target £99bn of overseas pension investment into key UK projects by 2035 has been announced only weeks after the government struggled to pass its pensions schemes bill.

A new “Supers Unit”, led by the Office for Investment, aims to boost collaboration and streamline investment from Australian pension funds into growth sectors, including infrastructure, real estate and private markets.

This follows a memorandum of understanding signed at last month’s IMF meetings between UK chancellor Rachel Reeves and Australian treasurer Jim Chalmers to support greater investment between superannuation and pension funds in both countries.

This new unit “will pave the way for vital investment into key UK projects”, said Lord Jason Stockwood, investment minister, who will visit Australia, Malaysia and Singapore next week to meet investors.

This plan will “deliver long-term economic growth while boosting our already strong trade relationship with Australia”, he added.

Singapore is another large investor in the UK. Total Singaporean foreign direct investment in the UK was worth about £27bn at the end of 2024, according to figures from the Department for Business and Trade.

Lord Stockwood aims to deliver the message that the UK is a trusted, stable and connected destination for Asia-Pacific investment.

Australian superannuation funds already hold about £41bn in UK investments as of mid-2025, according to a report by infrastructure investors IFM. These funds are expected to double their investments in the UK and Europe by 2035 to £323bn.

Currently, nearly 60 cents in every new Australian dollar contributed is invested internationally, with the US, UK and Europe all key destination markets.

The chancellor has been keen to get UK pension funds to emulate the scale and breadth of investments of the world’s largest pension schemes, including Australia’s.

Reeves, alongside pensions minister Torsten Bell, has sought to encourage local pension funds to increase investment in the UK, including in private assets.

This culminated in the 2025 Mansion House Accord, a voluntary commitment signed by 17 major UK workplace pension providers to allocate at least 10 per cent of their defined contribution default funds to private markets by 2030, with 5 per cent of that total invested specifically in UK private markets.

Last month, Reeves prevailed in her stand-off with the House of Lords over legislation, the Pensions Schemes Act, that will give ministers the power to compel pension funds to invest a minimum amount in UK companies and private assets.

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